YouTube Video Review � PCI Case C3EG

We've just uploaded our latest YouTube video - a review of a PCI Case C3EG server chassis based server solution for a customer of ours.

The chassis used was a PCI Case C3EG, which is a fantastic enterprise grade 3U chassis. It has 16x 3.5" hot-swap bays compatible with SATA and SAS hard drives. The backplane has 4x MiniSAS (SFF-8087) connectors. Although the backplane and required RAID controller must be SAS, the backplane is fully SATA II and SATA III (6Gbps) compatible. Installed in this server for example were 16x 1TB Western Digital RE4 Drives, which are enterprise class SATA drives, 6Gbps (SATA III) and 7200RPM spindle speed.

The chassis has 3x 120mm PWM fans installed in the middle of the chassis, pulling air over the hot-swap drives, and then over the motherboard. These fans are 4pin PWM and have long cables for connection to a motherboard. They will work with a 3pin motherboard, but the PWM will not be connected so will run at full speed. These fans run very quiet at low RPM, but when on full RPM will push a huge amount of air. Full specifications on the CFM and dB(A) of the fans can be found on the product chassis page on our site. These fans are not hot-swap, but are easily removed as they are mounted on rubber mounts (to help reduce vibration). They could be easily removed from the system without the need for a screwdriver.

The motherboard used in the example was a Gigabyte GA-X79-UD3 socket 2011, running with a cost effective Intel Core i7 3770K CPU and 32GB of Hynix RAM. This motherboard was chosen due to its high PCI-E bandwidth capabilities and that it will use cost-effective, but high-end Core i7 CPU’s. The RAID card used was an LSI 9260-16i SATA/SAS Controller. This is a 16 port (4x MiniSAS) hardware RAID controller – one of LSI’s top-of-the-range models. There is an add-on battery backup module also so any read/write cache data is kept in session state should the power to the system fail. The customer opted for RAID 6 setup in two virtual disk groups. The customers’ own Linux based software performs a hardware striping over the two RAID groups.

Also fitted were 2x 320GB Western Digital 2.5" Scorpio Black drives. This PCI Case chassis comes as standard with a fixed 2x 2.5” bay, internal to the chassis. The chassis has an optional rear 2.5” hot-swap module which was used on this install. It allows 2x 2.5” hard drives (or SSD’s) to be installed. This module supports both SATA and SAS drives. For SAS drives single and dual port. These are also SAS/SATA 6Gbps compatible. These drives were connected to the SATA controller and the custom Linux software was configured with a RAID 1 mirror.

Fitted in the chassis is a Zippy 800W dual redundant PSU, allowing a PSU to fail and be easily hot-swapped with a replacement without any system disruption.

Also fitted in this system are 4x BlackMagic DeckLink Studio 2 dual port SD/HD video capture cards. These servers are used for video production and broadcast so use the extremely good quality BlackMagic cards. We are an authorised BlackMagic reseller and resell the full range of their products. Please call us on 0800 652 1649 to discuss your requirements.

All of the products seen in the video review are available on our site to purchase individually, however if you would like to talk with us about a custom server configuration please call us on 0800 652 1649 or email us on [email protected]

Check out the video here!